I wasn’t intending to say anything more about the importance of doctor-patient communication. But Kevin, a primary care physician and blogger pointed out this morning that “How you do it matters.”

He links a story about a recent study that shows a divergence between what patients want for reassurance and what doctors typically give them.

According to the story, researchers are claiming, “Doctors should know that when meeting a new patient for the first time there is no second chance to make a good first impression.”

Almost all patients want to be greeted by name when seeing a doctor for the first time and want to shake hands, a survey of patients found. But while handshakes are common, doctors often never utter the patient’s name, the researchers said. “Greetings are just a small slice of the visit, but they can have a lasting impact,” study leader Gregory Makoul of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine said in a telephone interview. “It’s the first impression that can really set the tone for the rest of the encounter and for the doctor-patient relationship.”

It is important to look for nonverbal cues and make a patient feel comfortable on that first encounter. Another report summed up the findings,

They surveyed 415 adults about their expectations and preferences for being greeted by doctors and found:

• Just over 78 percent wanted doctors to shake their hands, while about 18 percent did not.
• More than half (50.4 percent) wanted their first names used during greetings, about 17 percent preferred their last name was used, and nearly a quarter (23.6 percent) wanted doctors to use both their first and last names.
• Just over 56 percent of patients wanted doctors to introduce themselves using first and last names, 32.5 percent wanted doctors to use their last name, and about 7 percent wanted doctors to use their first name.

The researchers also videotaped 123 new patient visits with 19 different doctors. They found that:

• Doctors and patients shook hands about 83 percent of the time.
• In 50.4 percent of visits, doctors did not mention patients’ names at all.
• Doctors used their first and last names when introducing themselves in 58.5 percent of the meetings, and did not introduce themselves at all in about 11 percent of the visits.

If all ti takes is a handshake and reading and remembering a name, I suspect that is a small price to pay to avoid the sort of problems that lead to miscommunication and sometimes to an attorney.